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Comment That isn't, actually, what the court said... (Score 2) 88

From the link:

The second, deep hyperlink, however, did make the content readily available. All the reader had to do to gain access to the article was to click on the link, which does not constitute a barrier to the availability of the material. Thus, C has satisfied the requirements of the first component of publication on a balance of probabilities where this link is concerned. However, the nature of N’s article, the way the various links were presented and the number of hits on the article do not support an inference that the allegedly defamatory information was brought to the knowledge of some third person

He only got off because it was unlikely that anyone actually clicked the link. If his page had more hits, or someone in the court knew about logging referrer headers, then he may well not have gotten off.

Comment Re:The story has no context (Score 3, Informative) 345

Here's the context:

First, we recognize that police power draws from the credo that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Second, while this maxim rings utilitarian and Dickensian (not to mention Vulcan21), it is cabined by something contrarian and Texan: distrust of intrusive government and a belief that police power is justified only by urgency, not expediency. That is, there must exist a societal peril that makes collective action imperative: “The police power is founded in public necessity, and only public necessity can justify its exercise.”22 Third, whether the surrender of constitutional guarantees is necessary is a legislative call in terms of desirability but a judicial one in terms of constitutionality. The political branches decide if laws pass; courts decide if laws pass muster. The Capitol is the center of policymaking gravity, but the Constitution exerts the strongest pull, and police power must bow to constitutional commands: “as broad as [police power] may be, and as comprehensive as some legislation has sought to make it, still it is subsidiary and subordinate to the Constitution.”23 Fourth, because the Constitution claims our highest allegiance, a police-power action that burdens a guarantee like the Retroactivity Clause must make a convincing case.24 Finally, while police power naturally operates to abridge private rights, our Constitution, being inclined to freedom, requires that such encroachments be as slight as possible: “Private rights are never to be sacrificed to a greater extent than necessary.”25

http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/2010/oct/060714c2.htm#_ftnref21

Note: "cabined" means limited, contained in a small place

TL;DR: The Vulcan quote was used as an example of evil to be contained, not as a guiding principle.

Comment Re:Apple is indeed shooting itself in the foot. (Score 1) 717

Apple is most certainly responsible for infringingly distributing VLC.

Well, that's missing the point. The person who uploaded the binary gave Apple a signed statement that Apple could distribute it. It isn't Apple's job to read other people's license agreements. They brought their own, and someone from VLC signed it.

Comment Re:PDF files will render as seamlessly as HTML? (Score 2, Informative) 285

They mean "seamless" as in, not having to download the PDF file then open it in another application, or waiting for an ActiveX control to load, or once it has loaded, to have different toolbars and graphic styles from the browser, and so on. None of these things are "the main strength of PDF", so there is no conflict at all in removing these "seams". Try looking at a PDF in Safari on OSX some time, it already does all this, PDFs load up just like HTML pages.

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